Read Online The Deadliest Sin by The Medieval Murderers - Free Book Online

kneeling on the bed of the cart, he could see her: Pelagia. Beside her, as though guarding her on the way to her wedding, were Bill and Walter, flanking her on their ponies. Janyn
was quite tempted to bellow at them to leave her and join the main column that straggled its way along the road, but there was no point.
    He could see why they kept near her. She looked lovely.
    ‘What?’ Barda asked, seeing the direction of his gaze.
    ‘Should I do something about them? Look at them: drooling over her like a pair of dogs after a bitch,’ Janyn said.
    ‘What, are you jealous? Jan, get a grip!’ Barda chuckled to himself. ‘You met her, you allowed her into our vintaine, and you stopped the arsehole Henry from raping her –
what more do you want? Are you jealous of the lads?’
    ‘Of course I’m not.’
    ‘But she does look beautiful, doesn’t she?’ Barda said. ‘She gives the brothers something to fight for. No Frenchman will get to her without knocking them down
first.’
    ‘I’m worried about Bill. She never gives him a look, but I’ll bet he’s never stopped thinking about her.’
    ‘I think Walter is smitten as badly, and yet she gives them no affection, no sign of any desire to be with them, only a cold, distant demeanour.’
    ‘I don’t think Walter hoped for anything from her. When she first came to the camp, he just sought to protect her from the other men.’
    ‘Is this all about them – or is it you, Jan?’ Barda asked.
    ‘Me?’
    ‘When Henry came to us, it wasn’t Bill or Walter who stood before him, it was you. Is that the problem?’
    ‘No!’
    It wasn’t because he wanted her. If he’d wanted a woman, he could have found himself one. Any of the Winchester Geese who followed the army would be good for a quick release. They
were able, willing, and quick, generally, just like the whores of the Bishop of Winchester’s stews from whom they took their name.
    Pelagia was not like them. She was a mystery. Other women demanded attention and craved companionship, but Pelagia just seemed to exist. She desired nothing from any of the men in the vintaine,
and only showed a calculated disdain when any tried to get too close to her. The rest of the time, she remained with their group as though she was sister to their whole unit. There was no offer of
sex or even friendship, only a firm independence.
    She was not like other women. He didn’t get the sense that there would be any pleasure in pursuing her like a sensualist determined to gain another notch on his bedpost. Other men talked
of the thrill of the chase of a fresh woman, but Janyn had never been interested in that kind of exercise. He was content to concentrate on his work. One day, perhaps, he would go to England and
seek a wife, but not here, not in this godforsaken land of burned crops and slaughtered animals. This was no place to think of settling, it was only a country to be tamed, and that profitably.
    Sometimes he thought he saw something in her face. Perhaps a flash of sadness, or a look of quick despair, but it was so fleeting, he could not swear to it. Perhaps it was just his mind trying
to make sense of her, of her feelings and of what drove her on.
    He didn’t care, anyway. Whatever it was that she wanted, he wanted none of it.
    ‘How was the battle?’ Laurence asked. The other pilgrims were hushed by the tale as Janyn paused and topped up his drink from a jug.
    ‘The French did not have enough men. Nothing like enough. By that time, I suppose our King had some thirty thousand men under arms. It certainly looked it, with men all about the town
itself, and more arriving every day. But the French had gathered together a scant twenty thousand.’
    He nodded to himself pensively. ‘Even if they could synchronise their attack with a sortie from the men in the town, they wouldn’t have had enough. Their army was demoralised
before they saw the English. Who wouldn’t have been, after the shattering defeat of Crécy? And